Our Kids Play Goalie: Finding the Physical and Mental Edge in Goaltending with Former Pro Paul Cohen

SPEAKER_04 1:23

You know, there's not many things that I would do to trump who or what we're talking about on this episode, because we have an amazing guest today. And I'm gonna get to that in a second. But because of you, we've been nominated as a Sports Podcasting Awards Podcaster the Year in the hockey category. So, first off, thank you for your support and helping us get to that level. And if you'd like to support us even more, head over to our kidsplayhockey.com. Uh, there's a link there because it's at the point now where it is somewhat of a fan vote to pick a winner. It is an absolute honor to even be nominated and shortlisted by their experts, uh, ranging from people from Amazon uh to eBay and other big uh networks. But uh, if you want to help us get to that title, you can go over to our kidsplayhockey.com right now. There'll be a link there to vote. So if you pause right now and do that, we'd really appreciate it. But if you don't want to pause right now, let's get into the episode today with Paul Cohen. Paul is a former AHL, ECHL, and collegiate division one goaltender. He is a hell of a person. He owned his own goaltending school, now owns his own business. He is the head coach of the Puerto Rican Ice Hockey Association's men's division one national team. And in this episode, we dive into everything from how to coach goalies, how to make sure that we're incorporating them to practice, but we also talk a lot about the mental health, mental fitness, mental preparation side of the position, which really expands beyond just goaltending, but shines a light on how important it is for a goaltender to do that. So, coaches, if you're listening, and parents, if you're listening, it's gonna give you a lot of insight into that. Uh, and even beyond that, we talk a little bit about the size of the nets uh and how they're changing throughout the game. I'm not gonna tell you what he thinks or what I think or what Mike thinks, but I am gonna tell you it's a little bit of a debate that you're gonna want to hear about. So let's dive into that episode with Paul Cohen on Our Kids Play Goalie right now. Hello, hockey friends and families around the world, and welcome to another episode of the show where talking about butterflies is always acceptable. Our kids play goalie. Our guest today, Paul Cohen, is a former professional and collegiate goalie, is also an experienced player and goalie coach. He started a net for St. Lawrence University for multiple years during their championship runs of the late 80s before embarking on a professional career that would see him become an established goalie in ECHL, AHL, and several top European leagues until the turn of the century. Paul is also an established business owner as the founder of ultimatehockeyfans.com and is an experienced coach, having run his own hockey school for many years, and today is the head coach of the men's national team for Puerto Rico. And a final fun fact, and there are many when it comes to Paul, he is one of the few goalies that has actually scored a goal in a pro game, having done so with the Springfield Indians of the AHL through traffic, I might add. You want to check YouTube for this one. This is not just one of those clean goals. You had to deke a couple people. Paul, it's great to have you on the show. Welcome to Our Kids Play Goalie.

SPEAKER_01 4:08

Hey, thanks, Lee. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_04 4:10

No, it's our pleasure. So, Paul, when we start the show, we always find that goalies have a real interesting story of how they got between the pipes. Sometimes it's because you're a sibling, sometimes you just find it. What is your reason for embarking on that position?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Well, actually, I started off as uh as a forward back in uh the Toronto days where they had the uh the two-minute uh uh buzzer to change shifts. And uh I was actually uh five years old, and every time that I would go off the ice, I would start crying because I would want to go and keep playing. So uh of course, one uh one day uh the goalie didn't show up. Uh coach looked around the dressing room and was like, Who wants to play goal? Who wants to play goal? And I was like, No, no, no. And then he said, You get to stay on the ice the whole game. I was like, I'm in, it's me. That's me. And literally, literally, literally, literally from that point on, it was uh it was goalie.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Yeah, you know, I I experienced that kind of with my own kid, Paul, where he he played kind of forward slash defense for a few years, and then he got in the net. He hasn't come out, and he won't. He just loves it so much. Um, you know, my next question for you, Paul, is this and and for everybody listening here, we're gonna dive into some really cool goaltending stuff today. But the goaltending position is always evolving. And I'm curious what are some of the biggest changes you saw during your career and how do you adapt to them? Because again, as we've discussed off the call many times, you're in a transitional time period when you played, right? And the game evolved, and you you you did it, right? You evolved successfully through that. So take us through some of those changes and how you managed to get through them.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

Well, it wasn't only the the evolving, it was the learning because back in the day it was the uh the Bernie Perant, uh uh Terry Sawchuk uh skate save. You know, that's that's what you were. You were up, you were square. They never wanted you to go down. If you went down, you got yelled at, basically. Uh you had to follow the puck right into your stick, deflect it to the corner, the old big skate save. Um, and then all of a sudden things started to change. Uh, pads, the equipment got uh um a lot better, a lot lighter, uh, from the uh the old brown deer hair uh that weighed uh 15 pounds on a leg to all of a sudden the new uh the aeroflexes and the uh the foam. But really it was the the coaching. And unfortunately, I only had a week of coaching. We went to uh uh a place called Cooper Sport Camp. It was an Applebee College in uh in Oakville, Ontario, and it was run by a guy by the name of Bill Hayward, who used to be the power skating coach for the Toronto May Police. Well, back in the day it was uh Ron McLaren and Fred Scambati, who were the goalie coaches. They never really played at a high level, but they had a program that you had to follow. And typically through the years of going there in week uh five and six, because those were the elite uh weeks to be able to go there, that's where you started every single year learning different saves. So again, it was a skate safe. Then it w we we we did tea pushes back in the day. I mean, it was telescoping T pushes, and then all of a sudden it went to shuffling. Then all of a sudden it went to, oh, you can go down now? Well, why do you go down? And they never really explained, you know, and this is now when you're 11, 12, 13, where you're starting to figure things out. Guys are starting to shoot fuck a lot harder, they're picking the top corners. I mean, guys on my team, uh uh minor hockey, Bob Probert, Sam Haydy, guys who played in the NHL, you know, you got John Tucker, another guy, not dropping in, but these were all guys in our youth organization who the older that they got, the shots were getting harder. So around 12 or 13 was the transition of really understanding why to go into the butterfly.

SPEAKER_04 7:59

Well, listen, first off, name drop all you want. That that's the whole point of this. You deserve it. You've had a you had a wonderful career there. Uh, you know, you talked about the coaching. And first off, I love that and Mike, you you should comment on this too, right? It was once a summer, you learn something new. Now it's like once an hour, coaches are bringing in something new, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:19

It's too much, right? I mean, it's almost it's like it's like information overload sometimes instead of just letting your athlete be an athlete. And I think it's so funny how the game's evolving, right? Because now we're watching goalies that are conditioned to be low and on the ice and in the butterfly and the VH and the whole thing. And now, and now we're evolving, right? Our forwards are understanding. Well, that's how we're gonna beat a guy up top from behind the net. And I just watched Trevor Ziegress score a goal, you know, between his legs last night because the goalies down and out, and and and you know, the puck has eyes, right? So, where do you put the angle of that stick? You put it somewhere where uh the angle is gonna go to where, you know, exactly you have the open ice. So I think it's just it's it's it's really great, Paul, right? That when you describe, you know, just your little evolution, how you know nothing's ever set in stone. And you try to find goalies that uh can perform, I guess, right? You're you're looking at the percentages, right? Yeah, how do you take a great athlete and then build them in and then go through these camps and these programs to just try to fine-tune like how can I make this athlete their own and then fine-tune all the little pieces that you have to have as far as a goaltender goes?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Exactly. It was fundamentals. Uh, you know what? When I when I look back at those uh the early days at Cooper Sport Camp and everything like that, it was fundamentals. Um, and I think a lot of uh goalie coaches are getting away from that. They try to do, for instance, okay, um, in this situation, it's basically a guessing. And and it's not when you're four foot nothing, all right, and you're young and you don't know how to move laterally or you don't know why to move laterally, and you keep going down, and most importantly, you're not set in your net and you're not on your angle. Well, that's why you're getting beat. It's not because you have to go down on every shot, it's your positioning in the net, and then from there, what kind of movement am I going to use? What's the what's the situation? And then this is the save that I'm gonna make. And then on top of that, you've got to say, okay, rebound control. What am I gonna do after I make that save? And it just has to, it it's it's automatic. And that's when I got into my goaltending uh camps to started teaching them. That's initially how I how I viewed how I'm going to teach every player. It's not gonna teach them a style, they're gonna develop their style over time. It's teaching them the fundamentals, right?

SPEAKER_04 10:33

And it's super true of skaters, too. You know, the the balance between creativity and then fundamentals. And look, every young player wants to be creative, but if they don't have the fundamentals, the creativity is gonna somewhat go to waste. And you know, I'm finding Paul with my own son is uh we work a lot on fundamentals, and it's funny because um obviously I'm hyper focused on the goaltending position now because he's there for the first time in my life, which is really exciting, right? I uh one of the best parts about the journey with my kid is that I'm learning the game again through a different set of eyes, uh, which is really a gift. But some of the things I've seen, and we've talked about this on the show before, Mike. I I have seen eight nine-year-old goalies with the best equipment, fully dressed, with parents behind the net yelling at them to do certain saves, and the kid can barely skate or doesn't understand just basic fundamentals of skating, not much less goaltending, right? Uh, and you said it before too, and this is going to lead to a question about the why behind the movement, right? It's not just about dropping to the butterfly or moving laterally, it's the why behind it. So, one of the purposes of this offshoot of our kids play hockey is to to help coaches, to help parents who are even not goaltending parents understand the position better so we can coach the position better. So, my next question for you is what are some of the questions that youth coaches should be asking about the goaltending position that they're not currently in?

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Oh, that's that's a good question. Um, what are they not asking? Well, first off, is uh are the kids having fun? Because that's the number one question. All right, being stuck in that used to be hey, the old fat kid or the kid that was greedy that wanted to play all the time. You know, now now it's one of these why do you want to be a goalie? Okay, well, you like it. Okay, that's the first thing to start off with is liking the position, not being forced to play the position. I think that would be the first question.

SPEAKER_04 12:33

Yeah, I I think so too. And and again, you're right. It was a situation this year for my kid where it was a rotating goalie to start the season, he just fell into it, and it's obvious that he loves it, right? And and the dedication from really all the coaches at that level to help him has been really motivating uh for me, you know. Um, there's another one for you, Paul. So, so in addition to the questions, I think the goaltending is a position that's often underutilized or mismanaged at practice. So, what can we do as coaches to do a better job of making the practices more beneficial for goalies, obviously, including the goalies? Um, in instead of just saying get in the net, stop the puck, uh, in the next 30 minutes, we're gonna be skating. You figure it out. All right, you know, but we got to do a better job of incorporating them into practices. How can we do that?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Well, that uh, you know what? That's the uh um the age old question. You know, how do we get our goalies involved in practice? You know, um, geez, I don't want to age myself, but back when uh they started uh with the the goalie, the uh uh player and forward um and goalie mentorship programs, uh I think it was called Mitron. And then Nike came up with it was you know, how how to have a specialist in your organization be able to go around to all the coaches, all right, and basically help them understand how they can utilize goalies in practice. And, you know, this is again old school, we're talking good 15 years ago, and it was like, I know how to run my practices, don't tell me. And you sit there and you watch the goalies do pirouettes and they skate in the corner and the drills are going on, and then they pop in and make a save, and then they go out. And and and I think nowadays it's so easy because of all the different software that is out there to be able to have a drill and then to say, okay, this is what the drill is going to be, even if it's you know, at the beginning of practice where the guys are uh you have your entire team skating around and working their edges and that. There are so many circle drills or crease drills that the goalies should be doing, all right, not only for fundamentals, but for stamina and for conditioning that they could be doing as well to get warmed up and then get in the crease to stop pucks. It's not one of those things, and I know ice time is so valuable at every single level. It's like the coaches want to bang, get right off the start and start uh with practice. The goalies need at least five minutes, just crease mobility drills to get going in the practice, and then you can start off with the uh the shots from you know, the I'd say anywhere from uh the blue line to the top of the circles, get them to see the puck. You don't want them coming right in a slot and ripping high and high heat at them right at the beginning because then all of a sudden the goalie's gonna start throwing your stick at him.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

You know, Paul.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Like I would never do anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

But Paul, it's almost, it's almost, yeah. We used to my my college goalie used to, I said, listen, if you take a shot from the corner of the line, right? If the if the if the pucks are coming at you, but some some knucklehead wants to try top shelfing the puck from the corner and standing in the line and hit you, you have every go ahead, you have every right in the world to chop the kid down. I said, I that's that's on that's on them. You want to be that stupid? Go ahead. Um, you know, so I but I think this is this is everywhere. I mean, I see it in I see it in my kids' lacrosse practices, I see it in my in in soccer, I see it even in baseball with catchers. Like all these positions, hockey goalie, catcher, you know, we none of no coaches do a great job of finding ways to utilize their non, I want to say coaching staff. For instance, you know, I'm the head coach, I've got 18 other players, and I got these two goalies. So where naturally will I weigh my attention as far as what time I have to teach? Well, I'm probably gonna weigh in on the 18 and expect the two to be like, okay, just take care of yourself, do your warm-up, do your routine. But I'm finding every day, like the people I advise, like there's no reason whatsoever why a parent, somebody helping another kid can't be out there putting goalies through just little mental and movement routines. Like to your point, like those reps to get them on the ice is is so crucial. Like I I watched a video the other day I sent out to the goaltenders I work with of um, I forget who it was, uh, one of the professional baseball first base coaches. And all he was doing, literally five feet from the first baseman, just throwing a ball and the and the player snapping it, snapping it, snapping it, snapping it. And you and now and and you're looking at it like a nine-year-old coach, like, what the hell is this? Like, what a what you know, I mean, this is a professional athlete that's playing getting paid $12 million a year, and he's doing a five foot catching drill with his coach. You can't you can't tell me you can't find a parent to do that with your goalie. Like while you're while you're working your kids out, and I think this is where we lack the most in understanding the position as as as coaches, as the lead coaches, that all those little things don't take a lot of me knowing the goalie position. It's me managing the fact that there's going to be these 10 minutes here and these 15 minutes here and these 12 minutes there, then I need to make sure that somebody else can give my goalie the reps. Because and and and I guess what I guess it's maybe you could talk about this a little bit, the deliberate reps. Like, how often can I get have my forwards come down and I want my goalie to work on his high to low catching or whatever it is that my players can actually hit those spots on a regular basis, right? Like you hear the glass and then he gets hit off the head, this kid hits it. So, you know, I think that those those opportunities to get quality reps in, I think you can build those into your practice if you have right organizational skills.

SPEAKER_01 18:22

Oh, without a doubt. Okay, so let's take a couple examples. You just on the ice, you're starting uh you're starting practice. Um, you can actually design a practice for the first five minutes that the goalies are from the uh say the top of the circles in with two players and a parent. Okay, both goalies are in the net. You could do, I mean, I've got hundreds of drills where there's actually two goalies in the net and you're working on different drills, whether it is goalies, one goalie starting at the top of the circle, the other goalie uh on say on the left hand post. You you bang your stick, you start the drill. It's a butterfly, shuffle to the other post. The other goalie comes up, make the save, you're shooting it. So whether it's right in front of the goalie or whether they're utilizing the uh the uh the dots on the circles, you could do drills like that. You can have a goalie stopping behind the net, pretending that he's playing a puck, have a puck sit there, shoot the puck around the boards while the goalie that's in front of the net takes a shot, then he goes around the opposite side of the net, stops the puck. Again, it's it's being creative, it's getting out there, understanding. Okay, hey, what are game situation drills that I can do for five minutes to warm my goalies up? Look at all the crease drills, just take a look at flurry. Take a look at flurry in between every single whistle. What stretching, what mobility drills that he does. I mean, it's and that's during a game. Okay, so that's the first thing. So then all of a sudden now we're in the flow drills. All right. It's kind of difficult to implement a second shot in a in a flow drill. Okay, say you're doing a Calgary curl, it's all timing, goalie makes a save, you're getting goalie's getting shots consistently. Now, say you're you're doing a drill where there's a pause and there's a regroup. Now you can utilize that coach where it's going to be a secondary save. So no matter where it is, okay, because you're every coach should be having their players drive the net, stop on the net for rebounds. That's number one. Okay, so they get to play that rebound. And then, depending on where they are in the net, you can either have two if you're lucky enough, or if you have one coach where the goalie has to move over to that coach to take a secondary rebound shot. So you can't tell me you can't be creative with all kinds of drills. If they can do it at the pro level, you could do it at the youth level as well. It's just being creative and understanding the drills.

SPEAKER_04 20:51

And not being lazy with your planning. Well, exactly part of it too. Like, like we we talk about this all the time on both shows about you know, are you planning your practice when you get to the rink, or was your practice planned? All right, and and and goaltending has to be part of that practice. And I also love that you said, Paul, we've talked about this a lot about players going after their rebounds when appropriate. It's uh for anybody listening who has a skater, I implore them to do that all the time. You know, the other thing too, Paul, I was thinking about even just uh in warmups. Uh, we talked about this, Mike, you know, about understanding as a player how to warm up your goaltender. And, you know, it's funny, at the younger ages, uh, the coaches will say to me, Well, they'll just shoot wherever they want. Well, have you sat down with your team and told them the purpose of the warm-up for the goaltending? Um, and I find that that conversation just doesn't happen at the younger ages. And what's funny is that even at the men's league level, I was at a game a few uh months ago, and one of my guys ripped it right off my goalie's helmet, and he was understandably upset. Uh, so I went out of my way to make sure I said, you know what, I'm just gonna put a bunch of pucks in the middle and I'll I'll warm them up. You guys just skate around to not piss off our goaltender. But yeah, a lot of this just comes down to preparing, uh, like you said, there is no lack of drills, and there's no lack of resources. We Mike and I talk about this too. The USA Hockey Coaching app has plenty of goaltending drills for different skill levels, and I think that there's way more beyond that. That if you want to take literally 30 minutes prior to the season, you could have your whole season planned in terms of goaltending drills, uh, uh, in terms of just you know how to incorporate them into a to a to a uh a situation. So I think that's really important. Um, and I don't think we do that enough as coaches, and uh especially the the younger level coaches, I think it's important that you you you find ways to incorporate the skating and the fundamentals. Um Paul, another thing a big part of the position is obviously the mental side. And you know, on the show we really try and tackle the mental fitness of every position. Um, but uh needless to say, I a goaltender has to be the most mentally strong person on the team in my mind. Um, you know, I know you pretty well. You're a very headstrong, mentally strong person. Um, I'm curious of a couple of things. One is, you know, how did that develop to you if you're comfortable talking about that? And the other thing, too, is you know, how do we develop that at a young age? And and again, the quick example is you know, when you're 15, 16, it's it's a different conversation about hey, you got to be mentally strong than when you're eight or nine. And the understanding of hey, the puck's gonna go. In the net, how are we going to respond to this? Right? Are we going to get angry and slam our stick and go back like it's the end of the world? Or are we going to reset? I want to know your approach to the game mentally. How you got there and how we can build that as coaches.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

Well, to say uh that I'm competitive is uh is an understatement. Um I hated to lose, I hated giving up goals. Um to the point where it was, I think nowadays they would uh they would have me going to you, Lee. Um when you really when you really think about it, because it was it was I didn't want to let my teammates down. And that's what it was, because if they score on you, um, it wasn't how it is now where you take a look and you break it all down, and you know, hey, yeah, we went past the goalie. There's five other guys that it's got to get through. No, back then they look at you and they point at you, and they it was it was your fault. So I I think it started just from my competitiveness, all right. And then um it it started. Well, if you're gonna break a stick, you're not gonna use a stick in practice the next day, you know. What are you gonna do? Or you're gonna work in the garden, or are you gonna work outside and you're gonna earn uh to be able to get a stick?

SPEAKER_03 24:27

There was no Mike Benelli's back then to provide sticks to everybody.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

That's no, you know what you know it's funny that you say this, Paul. I just I was just saying this to somebody the other day. Like, I can't believe watching highlights of the end of these games, like the last couple of months, how many NHL goalies are just destroying sticks over the net. Like at, you know, and maybe it's because there's more shooting, I mean, maybe because in the shootouts and I don't know, overtime. Maybe I'm just seeing it more, but I could like I look at that, and I'm not expecting everybody to be like a perfect role model, but I'm like, holy crap, that's like a $350 stick if for a kid, right? That just ripped that thing over the post and forget about what he's doing. Like, you know, you're watching these sticks flying by, you know, officials and things like that, you know, shattered and broken. But it's just a weird, it's just something I noticed like that that that to me when Lee talks about your mental toughness, like that's your like everyone sees the goalie. Everyone like if I'm a defenseman and I make a bad play, I kind of skate to the corner. I can be a jackass and break my stick over my knee. Nobody's seeing that. Everybody is the the spotlight, everything's on the goalie. So I think maybe maybe talk about that a little bit, like at the youth level. Like, like what does that what does that do for the the bench? Like it's a middle of the game. We give up a goal. Okay, it's one goal in the whole scheme of the game, but that goalie's now has lost his mind. Right. And what does that do to the right? Like, forget about what it does as a player. What does that do to the rest of the bench?

SPEAKER_01 25:52

All right. So so basically you you take a look at that in two parts for the goalie and then for the team. Okay, for the goalie guys, pretty, you know, they understand exactly what the goalie is made of, but however, I I I wish I would have learned this a lot earlier in my career on how to process uh the goal um and not have that rage uh of letting the goal or that guy scoring. I mean, you scored me, I hated you. You know, it's like guys get scored on the go for uh cocktails later, you know. It it never that never registered me to me at all. Um, but I was I was taught uh it was my my junior uh junior year, and I I had a um um just a father come up to me, had no idea who he was, and uh just wanted uh to talk to me. And it was like, you know, you're getting really upset and everything. Have you ever tried just after a goal, skate in one corner, across the front of the net, skate to the other, think about it, get to the middle of the net, and you know what? It's done, it's over with. You know, that you can't bring it back, you can't get upset, because then he started explaining to me that when you do that, all right, now you're affecting the team. The team's looking at you, well, is he confident? You know, what's good, or they look at it, oh, let's just go. He's just pissed off that he uh let in a goal. Um nowadays it's totally different. You have to process it, and you know what? Yeah, frustration's gonna happen. You know, if I I can't say that it's wrong or it's not wrong to break your stick, or if it's it's passion, okay. But to be able to process it and say, okay, they scored on me. Skate even though you knew you you're telling the D backdoor, backdoor, next thing you know, you're scored to the backdoor goal. And you're like, oh, skate to the corner, back in, going in the net, and then you're looking at it going, okay, got to focus on the next shot.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Okay, because that's it's almost more intimidating that you don't react. Like, like if you're a goalie who doesn't react, I'm like, I'm like, oh crap, like like that kid doesn't even, he doesn't care. Like he's just like, okay, whatever, get back into it. You'll face golf, let's go. I mean, I think that's that's such a strong mental piece, is and it's the intimidation piece, right? That says, no, it's almost like when you watch a player, you know, I don't know, and I've seen this, like I think it's like football is my perfect example of you know the over the top like emotions being out there on the field. Like, you know, you're losing by five touchdowns and you score and you're doing a dance, and like you're losing by five touchdowns. Like so when I see the goalie, when I see a goalie like celebrating a big save or be or or or lose uh crying uh after a bit a bad call, it's the same thing. Like to me, like I want that kid to learn how to be unemotional, like like be have emotion, but be not let it start influencing the rest of the game where you could say, My God, this kid just doesn't care. It's almost like it's like a player in trash talking, right? Like, you know the players that you could get under their skin and give them and give it where you know, like over time, over that game, that player can't play anymore.

SPEAKER_04 29:03

But you know, both of you guys, I'll I'll tell you this too, and this is only true of goaltending. There might be a rare night where a player's scoring a lot, and it just seems like he's he's got the golden touch or she's got the golden touch. But goaltenders mentally, for players, I've been in several games where you get to the point of we're not scoring tonight, like we're not gonna score on this guy. And I'll tell you what, only goalie's goalies can break a team that way. And it goes both ways, right? If a goalie's losing his mind, it's a we're gonna score a lot tonight. But the goaltender is the only position I've ever played against where I go, man, we're we can't get anything in the net. And and they take your soul, for lack of a better word, right? And and Mike, I agree with you. I think when a goaltender is stone cold, which is it's hard to do, um, that is more intimidating than guy losing his mind because it's just so easy to say, well, we're getting in his head now.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Um, well, I used to love those stories of like Dominic Haskick and stuff where coach is like, we got to bring in like a third goaltender here for practice because our kid, our guys can't score, like they think they can't score. I go, Well, it's the best goalie in the world. I said, You're you're of course you can't score. Like, I you see, like, like we don't know how to score.

SPEAKER_04 30:01

Well, you do know how to hey, hey, to be fair, there's always the heck stall approach, too, which is just chase the guy down with your stick until he's back.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

Listen, I was a Billy Smith man, so you know, I don't I like that. I said, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 30:11

Paul, I'm sure it was Paul was the guy.

SPEAKER_01 30:13

Oh, Billy, hey, don't even get me goaling on Billy Smith. Billy Smith was uh was uh the Islanders goalie coach uh my first year there. All right, and oh yeah, great, great story, okay. So so I don't know, just met Billy. You know, he um uh he refute referred to uh college guys as colored pukes, okay. Uh he liked the uh the Western, the OHL, you know, the the the I don't even know if it was Quebec League goalies, if he even liked them. But uh, anyways, long story short, he was telling me that uh when uh when a player comes down on you on the angle and he's you know going, he's gonna try to cut in, and at the last minute, if he goes behind the net, you have to hit him. And I was like, so you're telling me when Pat Lafontaine is breaking around Nyland, and Nylon is coming back to the near post, that if Pat Lafontaine comes in front of me, I'm supposed to hit Pat Lafontaine, and he looked at me, he just do what I say. And I said, Well, what is Nyland getting paid for? Yep, I was down on the miners, it happened like that, and it wasn't even the American League, it was right to the coast. But that was the old school thinking. Yeah, that that was that was depending on the goalie coach that you had. You know, Billy is a dear friend uh uh today. I mean, it was just it was how goalie coaches were wired back then and there, they were all ex-goalies, and depending on who you got was the style that they wanted you to play.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Right. Well, one of my favorite quotes in hockey is Gordy Howe, it's play hockey religiously, it's better to give than to receive. I was that's that that that sums up the time period. And like I wanted to go back a little bit too, Paul, about just the mentality. Um, because I I'm a big believer in hating to lose, right? And and again, I I I I'm uh forgive me, audience, for keep using my son as an example. These episodes are becoming investigative journalism for me in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

But what look here's the deal it's keeping my kids out of goaltending, so right, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 32:13

So so one of the things, and and this is not limited to my son. Like one of the things I see in young kids is when they get scored on, I look for the reaction, all right. And I've told my son, who has reacted pretty, pretty tremendously before, and I don't mean that in a positive way. Um, he hates to let the puck in, he hates to lose. So I've told him, and I think I think a lot of this is just in how you approach it. I say it's a I told him, Logan, it's a good thing that you hate when that puck goes in the net. That's a good thing, but you've got to be able to control your emotions so that it doesn't take you out of the game, right? But don't ever lose that hatred of the puck going in or losing to compete. And it brings me to this point, Paul. And this is something uh you you joked earlier about you might have to come to me today. You know, what's funny in my line of work is a lot of people mistake what I do, I'm not saying you, for kind of this kumbaya kind of kind of thing. And it's it's not that at all, right? And and I tell people you have to separate competitiveness and competing, they are two different things. And I always tell the young goalies and the and the even the kids I coach that we need to work on your competitiveness. That needs to be at the top possible level it can be. But then you have to understand within that the gift of competing. It is a different thing. Anytime we get to be on the ice or the field or whatever you're playing, it is a gift to compete, it's a gift to have a component, and you have to find this kind of balance between these two things. And I think that when the mistake happens, it's people judge themselves or their game on just the competing and not their level of competitiveness, right? I hope this is making sense, right? So that's one of the things that I focus on is you know, it's good to have emotions, it's good to hate to lose, to hate to let the puck in, but you cannot let them control you. You need to be in control of them, and I think that's one of the things that that you are able to do. Um, and look, for the people listening, uh I work with Paul, I know Paul. Paul is one of the greatest competitors I have ever met in my life, right? It it it is obvious, but you have control over it, right? And and that, and that's I think that's actually a little scary to people at some times, like the the intensity of you, but you like Mike to your point, like man, he's not moving, like his face is stone cold, but I know he wants to win.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

So it's it's hard, it's hard, right? Because you don't, I don't know, you don't want to, you don't I I think like if that's the beauty about coaching uh young men and women is how do you harness that? Like, I want you to, I want you to want to break that stick, I want you to want to chase that flame down, I want you to take a stick across the kid's throat. Can't do that. Like, we got to figure out I want that energy, but I want we we want to control it in a different way. And if you can harness that, and I think a lot of us as youth coaches miss we miss that. We miss the fact that we want our kids to be stone cold killers, but we don't want them to do it in front of us. Like we're we don't want them to become actual stone cold killers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

If there's viewers out there, we're not, yeah, we're not, we're not trying.

SPEAKER_00 35:14

And I'm talking about the athletic, I'm talking about the athletic sense. So so we want them to be like these kids that can withstand all of this pressure, but we don't let them release that pressure. Like we don't let them say, hey, listen, this is you're gonna do things, you're gonna like I I think uh Lee, we just talked about it, right? On a on a on a different uh a different guest that wrote in about his kid, you know, uh kept getting into fights or slap you know, slashing and getting pulled out of the line. But the kid was like just emotion. He didn't know how to do it. Like he's like, I don't know how to control it. I'm just okay, that's our job. We got to teach it, but don't take it away because we want that later on. Like we want that competitiveness. And and and I think goaltender, we need that competitiveness.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

I think it goes back to what I was saying is is over time and understanding how to be able to turn that switch on and off for you. Like you'll see goalies in the in all levels, okay. After a goal, do one of two or three things. Number one, they'll never ever pull the puck out of the net. Okay, they'll let the ref get down, pull it out, or something like that, all right, and just stand there. And then after he's gone, all right, do a little routine just in the crease, all right. Then you'll have the goalie, like I was saying, well, again, not pull the puck out of the net, just let it let it be there. You don't even want to visualize that in the net to begin with, all right. So, and then that is the goalie that's gonna skate around a little bit further to uh to cool off. And then you have the third, is he's gonna take a much longer skate, and he's gonna go right to the corners, and you're gonna see his head bobbing up and down. You may even see him hit himself in the head for being stupid, you know, how he he feels he he's just and then when he gets back to the crease, you just have to try to figure out a way to relax yourself to focus back on the puck. So as soon as that rep drops the puck, it's focusing on the puck again. So you're right. You you want them to be the top competitor as they possibly can, but you also want them to be themselves and let that emotion out because you don't want them to harness that frustration in because that's when you know somebody could lose an ankle, stick gets broken, guys do stupid things, and and and then you're like, okay, well, you know what? They used to say that's just code. You know, they they knew the competitiveness, but when I would do something that was out of the norm, it was just like, well, he's got it, okay, it's gone, he's good. And and I think that's it. And yeah, we we live in a totally different uh world right now where we've really gotta um take in consideration the the mental well-being of uh of every athlete. And and I think it it starts at the the young age, instead of um blaming them for letting the goal, it's a team. The team, but you know what, at the end of the day, the goalie knows or the pitcher knows if he gives up a home run or a quarterback throws an interception, he's looking at himself. Right. So the three toughest positions to play in all sports.

SPEAKER_04 38:28

Well, and I think though, Paul, that in the accountability on this, as you said, when we build team dynamics, it's if any of those situations happen that you said the quarterback, the pitcher, the goalie, it's does that person's teammates know that that person in that position is going to do everything they can to make sure that doesn't happen again? Like that's that's full accountability. And we don't we don't build that enough, especially in youth sports, where it's the car ride home, right? Well, if Johnny didn't make that pass, we would have won the game. That is the worst thing you can tell your kid in a car. First of all, it's yeah, I'll tell, I'll tell, I'll tell you, Lee.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

It wasn't even like that. And it starts for parenting, okay? Right. 100% parenting. I love my my dad, the whole nine year old. Do you know how many steering wheels and dashboards that he broke by pointing at me that it was my and and again, it goes back to parenting and teaching and understanding because he never played the game, he wasn't an athlete. It was just how could you let that in type of thing? And and and it starts from there, where like, oh, I never want to let that in because geez, I don't want him to break the steering wheel, right? You know, but uh to to your point, right? It's it's it's understanding the team concept, the the position of of wherever your son is playing, whether it's those three tough positions, and then being able or daughter, and then being able to go to him and say, Hey, don't worry about it, and have a conversation with them. Okay, going back to when my my Lisa played uh when she started playing uh uh goalie, okay. I didn't want her to play goalie. She was at the goalie camps, my camps were for the kids, they were paying customers. All the all the parents loved her, the instructors loved her, she's seven, eight years old on the ISO, whatever. She's gonna be with it, no problem whatsoever. Okay, we get in the first game ever. She gives up, I think, eight or nine goals. All right, comes up. We're living in uh in Ontario at the time, so yep, I have the Timmy's, I have her hot chocolate, all ready to go in the car, and and even then pads are off, you know, puts her running shoes on. So basically she's got her band-a-n, sweating, goalie upper gear on, and everything like that, jumps in the car, has everything. And I and I said to her, Lise, you know, you don't have to be a goalie like daddy if if you don't want to, thinking about like, oh, how bad she played. And she looked at me and she said, Dad, I just want to be like you. And right from that moment on, from a coaching standpoint, the switch changed.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

So, and that's that's what it was all about. Another similar story down here in a goalie first kid tried goalies out there, going to goalie camp, is is loving it. And then, you know, walk into the rink and his mom comes up, and uh Tyler just played his first game. I was like, Oh, I look up and 11-2, and I'm like, I hope he was a two. Coach came up, hey, coach Paul, coach Paul, hey, I tell you my first game was awesome. I go, Yeah, hey, looks like you did well. Yeah, I only gave up 11 goals, you know. It's like he's happy, you know, and and that's part of it as well. That's that's the most important part is having fun.

SPEAKER_04 41:37

Paul, I'll tell you, um, when when Logan was starting to dabble in the position, by the way, for everybody listening, Lisa is Paul's daughter. Uh uh, she was hell of a person, hell of a goy. But when Logan started playing, um, I I joked the worst thing possible happened. He had a shutout in his first game. I'm not bragging, follow me here. I was like, that's the worst thing that could have happened because now he now he's gonna think he's gonna do this, right? And I said to my wife, I said, here's what's gonna happen. At some point, he's gonna get pumped. And I said, and then we'll know. I said, then we'll know. And I remember it happened, it was like a 13 to 2 game. And I said, Oh, this is it, this is the moment, right? We went up to him, like, how do you feel? That's great. When am I getting back in net again? I was like, All right, there you go. This kid's a goalie. Um, you know, one of the things I want to talk about, taking a lot of notes here. Um, you talked about another funny story from me. You talked about the kind of the mechanisms for resetting yourself after the goal. Uh, we had another guest on that talked about spraying the water bottle and watching the water droplets fall. And that's how he got present. And I told that to my mic team. And now, after every goal, the whole team is spraying their water. People are looking at our bench, like, what why are they wasting all their water? Yeah, uh, but but the the the point of the story is this uh these techniques, these mental techniques are not just limited to the goaltender. And inadvertently, we taught the whole team the process of watch the water droplets. Now, again, they're eight, nine years old. I don't know how much they're actually understanding it, but they're doing it. And the point is, you can teach this stuff. Um, you know, talking about emotion, right? And and look, this is a this is advice for adults too, all right. Um, I think one of the the misnomers or things I should say mistakes we make is assuming our children understand fully what they're feeling, all right. And so often as a child, and this happens to adults too, you can be hijacked by an emotion. Anybody who's ever driven a car understands this, right? You someone cuts you off, you lose your mind. The emotion has hijacked you, right? And what I try and teach people and teach kids is that it's okay to feel that, but I did this is this is the advice for parents have your kid identify the feeling and say it out loud. I am angry, I am frustrated, I am happy, I'm elated. So they can start to build a base of what they're feeling, and then that inhibits it, it stops it from hijacking them completely. But I want them to feel it, I want them to know as a goaltender, you're frustrated, you're angry. I want you to be that way, right? I don't want you to be zened out to the point you don't care, but I want you to be in control of the emotion. So, Paul, as you said, you can reset, find those little like I call them triggers, right? To to reset your mind. Like another one um I do with teams regularly is when we get scored on or we score because because emotion goes both ways. You can get too excited in the game and lose it. I always ask what's the score? No matter what the score is, the answer is zero zero because that's the mentality we want. We're even killed, we're playing. Goalies have to do this all the time, right? You know, a player can have a mental lapse on the bench, it's not gonna affect the game. If a goalie has a mental lapse in the middle of the game, it's gonna affect the game. But I implore people to find those like little little mini um triggers in your lives. This is again, this goes beyond hockey to kind of read.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

Yeah, I use those same techniques at the Vegas carousel every day at the airport. So basically the same thing, like exactly as I'm as I'm losing my mind. I said, Well, what are you people doing? So I think it button rush in the carousel. I'm not saying your luggage. So, but that's but that's I think that's the ability to tell a a child, right, to be able to that's why we're we should be coaching. Proactively, right? That's why you can't wait until the kid's having the meltdown to say, hey, you know what we're going to try to do here? Let's try to forget about that goal. Like that's too late.

SPEAKER_04 45:24

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

This is building that mental acuity.

SPEAKER_04 45:28

Communication, Mike. It's all communication. Right.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

It's all communication. Every episode. So I think it's just a matter of, you know, go go in there proactively, build that confidence in your, you know, in your little six-year-old, seven-year-old, like find ways to find those routines where giving up a goal. Like my son plays uh a lot. He plays uh goal leaf in lacrosse. And we used to laugh, like he gives up like eight, nine goals. Like, no, that's pretty good, lacrosse.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

I said, he had a great game. I go, he did. I said, holy crap. Like, but it takes, it takes a different mentality to understand, well, that game's going to be 18 to 16, like not, not three to two. And I think this is where, you know, as our as our and I think to to Paul, to your point earlier about just the success rate, I think that's the reason I'm such a big proponent of, you know, when these kids are playing at the 8U and 10U level, of playing like an age appropriate size net and you know, being asked to do things that, you know, if we want more goalies, then we got to find more ways to make goaltending fun and and and and and find more goaltenders to have the ability to be successful. Like I can't tell you, like in the places I work, like how we keep seeing like at 11, 12, 13 years old, just like a just like a regular player, these goaltenders drop off the face of the earth like there's no goalies. And and then the ones that are left are like, oh my God, this is the kid that's left. Like, but if we do a better job of bringing in like the base and giving more more of our great athletes, you said it the first sentence was, you know, we used to not put our best athletes all the time in net. And it just happened to be like the kids that were really great athletes ended up going to the top. But don't we want more athletes? We want more of those kids. So I think finding ways to give them, I don't know. Do you think it's like, is it artificial success if a kid is in a in an a in a smaller net, you know, dealing with smaller pucks, or is it like I I love Paul's thoughts on that, by the way. Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:24

Well, well, well, first off, okay. Uh uh. I don't know if I open those. All right, no, no, let's let's let's back up a little bit here, okay? First off, Mike, routine. Routine is so key because the routine starts as soon as you get to the rink. Okay, so you take a look at the guy as soon as you walk walk out of the your parents' car or you walk off the the bus or the plane or whatever it is, your routine starts right then and there. Um, everybody has a different routine, everybody has a different focus. Okay. Um, I learned something that leaded up to really my success in uh in focusing uh through Cap Raider. And it was just something small, it was an easy question that he asked me, and I never really thought about it. Um, was do you watch the puck while it's in play the entire game? And I was like, what are you talking about? He said, you know, when it's not in the ref's hand or in the stands or anything, do you follow the puck around? I was like, not really. I'm watching the player watching he goes, no. What I want you to try to do is just while the puck is in play, no matter where it is, focus on it. Focus on where the puck is. You're gonna you're instinctively going to start looking at the players coming down, if they're a left-handed, right-handed shot, odd man rush, what the game situation is doing, if it's an end of the shift, are they gonna dump it in? But you're gonna be more focused. Okay. But then he said it starts right in the dressing room. So what I used to do is I used to take a at the beginning, all right, and this was at St. Lawrence University, um, I would take a black piece of tape. Okay, and then I would sit there and I would position it right in the middle of my body, and I would look at it, and I would I'd have a routine that I would go through in my mind that I would say, and believe it or not, that little piece of tape would start growing and growing and growing in my eyes, and I would just be focused, and I would be locked in. It would be right before the game, all right, not before warmups, all right, it'd be right before the game where the focus started, and then it would be in between periods, right five minutes before I'm going on the ice. So that's where that focus went on, and then from there, it was like after they scored, you know, do the process, do whatever you need to do to be able to do it, and that's where you get with uh with with the focus. Okay. So that's for routine and focus is is huge. You you've got to figure that out because Lee, that's where the mental toughness comes in as well.

unknown 50:00

Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

All right. Now, are you kidding me? Making that smaller. Uh I mean, lacrosse goalies. Lacrosse goalies are our head and heels above ice hockey goalies because they are absolutely demented. All right. I mean, like, seriously, all the equipment that they wear, and I've met some uh some uh really good uh lacrosse goalies for the Toronto Rock, and we had uh we had a lot of good jokes uh off the uh off the floor and on the ice and that when we we used to talk about it, but but seriously, that is a thankless friggin' position. And and they had look how small their nets are, all right. So, with that said, don't take away the integrity of the game. Goalie, when you're five and six years old, is supposed to be tough. All right, it's getting tougher all the way up. Now they've taken the goalie. I'm surprised uh the NHL hasn't uh made the goalies wear shin pads now. I mean, like seriously. We went from being able to put wooden dowels in the inside of our pads so that if it hits it and goes out, making a double blocker so that it's it's heavier that you don't see it. And so if someone comes in front of the net and you accidentally hit them with it, they really feel it. I mean, now it's it's at the point where no. The net is the size of the net. The trapezoids goalie can't go in the corner to the play, the puck or any uh okay. Uh enough's enough. All right. Uh like all jokes aside, keep the nets exactly where they are. I I think the blue puck is uh um a key because I wish I would have had that opportunity when I was a kid, back wearing the old Cooper GP uh 35s or whatever they were that didn't have the knee pads. And when you were first learning how to do the butterfly, you'd go down. And I'll tell you what, you take a puck on the top of your knee. Um the only thing that I can compare it to is taking one somewhere else, if you know what I mean. And it you literally, your nay, your your leg goes numb. It's it's an instant, it's just one of those things. So, no, you know what? Keep the nets exactly where they are, keep the equipment the way that it is, and it it's part of the process.

SPEAKER_04 52:04

Fair enough, man. Like I said, we Mike, that's a question we got to keep asking on these episodes and get around the table.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

Yeah, yeah. I don't want to I don't want to ask it too many times, uh, you know, because I don't want to have to meet Paul. But I think it's just I think I think it's just I I go to me, I think that's I think that was my point is that we want like so in my mind in my mind, I would say, well, don't we want to eliminate all the kids that aren't tough enough to play the sport as soon as we can? Yes, I think so. I mean, I honestly think this. Like, if you're not tough enough to play, if you can't withstand all the things we need to do, I want to know that sooner than later. Like, I'd rather know it sooner. Like, if you're gonna be a real goaltender, right? I want to know how tough you are and how mentally tough you are and how physically tough you are, and that you can make you can get post to post and dive and make saves and lead your team. Like, I I don't want to all of a sudden wait till you're 19 years old and be like, well, this kid just ain't he just ain't that tough. Like he can't he can't do it. Like but at the same time, from a from a programming perspective and a and a player perspective, I want as many great athletes into the pool as I can. And I think that although I could we could make an argument, right, that if you give up, if you're a little goaltender in a big net and you give up 27 goals in your first time, some kids are gonna go, well, I don't care. I like it. No problem. It's not my fault anyway. The D suck. Right? That's what I'd be telling my kid as a parent. Don't worry about them. But the other side is the the other side is well, don't we want kids to come and go, man, I just made I just made 50 saves? And I guess my point was, isn't that that I think it's kind of like when a kid scores 27 goals on you on a big net, that's not real either. Because you're really, you know, how many how many goals do you see that like fall over an eight-year-old's shoulder, like literally go over the shoulder. So my my question was more from the side of how do we bring more kids into the pool and give and that I think that's where like the quick change gear. Like I I I have literally a little program I run with 70 kids. Every weekend we have 12 different kids play goalie. And it's all because the ability to take a pad off, put it on, and now they're playing. Now, my my my pool, then now, trust me, you see kids like, okay, good. The kids shouldn't be a goalie. Like every time this shot comes, he's like, you know, so but then you have other kids that are like they give up eight goals and they don't even care. There's smiles on their face and they're competing and they're getting out there. Like me, I played goalie for a long time growing up, and I played goalie and forward, and I I used to go back and forth, and then I'd play soccer goalie, but I played soccer goalie. Like, I think I was the only kid in youth soccer making kick saves, like with their toe, like you know, as a go as a soccer goalie, because I would just react like a goalie, like I'd be you know, yeah, they're throwing my glove up and and you know, tackling kids outside the box, things like that. But I think it's I think that the the point, my point was let's get more kids into the tent and and then let's start and let's start figuring out like like if we get more kids, our our percentages of having great goaltenders is gonna go up, I think.

SPEAKER_01 55:00

Yeah, I I I like the idea of you know, everybody get to try to play goalie once or or during the season or something, or you switch it off, and then there's a point. I I I guess, yeah, you know, for the integrity of the game, it's one thing, but you know what? When you're younger, I mean, Lee, we might have to invest in uh um uh pipes or something like that. If I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say is like, oh, we'll get smaller nets for this group and smaller nets for this group, you know. Hey, let's go in the net and goalie net manufacturing business. Uh I mean, but but I I see where you're you're coming from as far as getting the the kids, but take a look at a guy like Curtis Joseph. All right, Kujo didn't start until he was older, a team, you know, in his uh, I think uh 12, 13. You know, kids mature a little bit, but it doesn't mean if you're seven years old or eight years old that you have to be a goalie right then and there. I mean, goalies now are are some of the best athletes on the team.

unknown 55:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

When you when you look at at every uh, you know, even in lacrosse, take a look at what they have to go through and and the stamina that they have in lacrosse as well. And the position in in hockey has changed so much. And you know what? It doesn't hurt when you're 6'6, okay, that when you go down in the butterfly, that your shoulders are at the crossbar. Okay. Already.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

So yeah, it it's well, and we're seeing, right, Dupaul, we're seeing that goaltending, I think, is the one uh the position in ice hockey that's that's distinctly a late bloomer sport. Like, like you really get to see, like when you're 17, 18, 19, and you're a good goaltender, all of a sudden kids just come out of like the woodwork. You know, it's probably why a lot of goaltenders don't get drafted in the first, you know, first round, right? Because you don't know. Like you're just seeing a kid going, well, they they positionally they're great and they're and they compete and and but now they haven't even stopped growing really, right? Like they're like now, and then let's let's you know, if you've been a goaltender your whole life, you know, then you got to worry about, okay, well, is this kid's hips gonna last? Is his knees gonna last? Is you know, you know, so I I like the fact that when these kids start later and they're multi-sport, you know, athletes and they have all the muscle structure around them to compete, that they're competing for later on. Like what's we talk about this on this on the podcast all the time. Like, what is the end game? Like, where's the long-term athletic development development principles? And my point is the more we could keep our goaltenders playing both, and again, I don't see that much. I mean, I it's it's a very nice thing to say. I just see it less and less and less. And I think it's because it's all like the kid gets a net and he just wants to be in the net. Like, even though it might not be the best thing for the kid, they're like, Well, I just want to be in the net. Okay, then then it's hard to it's hard to debate that.

SPEAKER_04 57:41

My my big problem with it right now is just the inconsistency with it, where you know, they say you're gonna play with this net the whole season, then 85% of the time we're not playing with that net.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

Uh well, in seasons too, that's just nuts.

SPEAKER_04 57:52

How about this too, Mike? I just uh we just played in this tournament, Paul. You'll like this, where um we we got a four-goal lead and they put a bigger net behind my kid. Yeah, I I got to tell him, but which is kind of cool. I was like, You're so you're playing so well they had to put a bigger net behind me.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Yeah, go put a soccer net out there. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

What's the next thing? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 58:10

I was like, we're we're punishing him for playing well. I said, you know, like that I obviously reverse that, but that's uh yeah, that's a debate that's gonna go on for a bit. Paul, I do have other questions I want to get to because uh we're gonna talk all day, but um I've got three more specifically. I think this is one that our audience always likes. Look, it it is tough uh already to make it as a high-level skater, right? Uh, it's much harder to do it as a goalie. What do young goalies need to keep in mind? I should throw their parents in this too. Um, if they want to attempt a chance at the higher levels of hockey.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

Uh, number one is of course it's hard work. Okay. Um you have to master your craft, you have to work at it. You know, nowadays it's it's a lot easier to be able to go online um and watch videos of all your favorite goalies. All right. To be able to figure things out where, you know, back before there was a thought of an iPhone or anything, you'd be laying on your bed, throwing a tennis ball up in the air, thinking about how Mike Palmatier just played that and how did he make that save and try to go and emulate him the next uh day in practice. All right. So um you have to be honest to your craft on and off the ice. The next thing you have to be realistic, okay. Um, you know, everybody would love their son or daughter, uh, whether it's to play in the NHL or the WNHL. I mean, it's it it's it's a dream, but again, it's a dream. And there's a lot of things in the universe that have to go right for you to be able to get there. And and I think is, you know, the motto of my my goalie camps and hockey camps have always been work hard and have fun. All right, because really at the end of the day, that's what hockey and sports are all about is you gotta work hard, you have fun, and um, you know what? There's what 64 goalies in the NHL, 64 goalies in the American League, 64 goalies in the the coast, then you take a look at college, you know, as the funnel goes up, the opportunity goes down. And you know, that's that's life. That's exactly what it's all about. So, you know what? You lay it all on the line every time that you play, and you know, hopefully you get in the right situation where somebody takes a liking to you and you get the opportunity and you make the best of your opportunity because that's another key thing is you can't complain if you got the opportunity and you fail flat.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

I mean, I just want to pull on that for a second, too, because we've talked about this with other guests. Is that that knowing that that competitive piece has to be in there later on, like it really has to be in there later on. Like you're gonna go to a camp if you're good, right? You're going to a camp and nobody gives a crap where you play. They want to say what you do. Like, what are you doing today? I think so. What would your advice be to a parent that that has like a 12-year-old, 13-year-old player that is looking at a team and the coach is giving them the line, like, you're our starter, you're the only one that's gonna play all the time, you're gonna be our number one. Yeah, there's gonna be another kid there, but he doesn't mean anything to us. You know, you, you, you, you, you. Would you say, like, no, no, I want, I want the competition built in. Like, I want my son or daughter looking across the ice and seeing somebody that's that's trying to kick my butt and take my spot. I just no, no, no, maybe not at seven, but at you know, 13, 14, 15 years old.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

That well, that's when the funnel really starts, when you really start taking a look at it, because then you then you get these um um, I'm gonna be politically correct right now, uh, these uh family advisors. Okay, uh, then, and then you get these um junior, whether it's the lowest junior league, I'm not gonna mention any leagues in it specifically, but even with the Puerto Rican Ice Hockey Association, what we're trying to do is to make sure that we protect our players. And what I mean by that is the uh U16, uh U-15, U17, going all the way up even to U20, is to be able to set them up for success um at the juniors because again, it's a business, all right. And I didn't understand that until it was it was too late, unfortunately, that hockey, no matter what level you're at, when you get to 13, 14, and 15, it starts becoming a business, all right? Not only for the family, because of all the investments that they made for traveling and your equipment and everything like that, but for the junior teams. And the junior teams have these uh showcase camps or these other uh camps that aren't even part of the junior uh organization, they call them showcase camps. And you're going out to these showcase camps, and the parents are spending you know $1,500 to get out there, and you're gonna be put on this team, and this kid got drafted. And and I heard the story from a family just recently, and so-and-so got drafted to the uh the NA, and this kid went to the US and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, but that was that kid. I said, when you take a look at the overall prospect deal model, it's to make them money, not you, and to give you false hope that yes, we're gonna have 47 different colleges and junior teams that are gonna be scouting, whether the guy goes on to watch it afterwards. You have to be realistic about hey, if you have the opportunity, and I said this to another one of our players, to go to a main camp. If they're inviting you to their main camp, that's total, that's another story. But these prospect camps, these uh um uh pre-camps, it's a money grab. So, from a parent, Mike, realistically, that's that's how you have to set your the expectations and your son and daughter up for success. It's like don't put them in situations where they could be the best player out there, and they're looking around and the competition wasn't even there, and then all of a sudden they go to a real camp and they're like, they're the worst player out there. Yeah, so it's it's very difficult. It's very difficult. You just have to be realistic.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:44

Well, sometimes that's the hardest part. Yeah, I was just saying, yeah, but but uh you know, people like you, Paul, that tell it real or are part of the key here. Uh, a couple more from me, Paul. So you mentioned it a minute ago that you're you're the head coach of the men's national team for Puerto Rico, um, something I know a little bit about, obviously, as I coach with you. Um, but I wanted to ask, uh kind of for the audience, right? Why is that an experience you wanted to pursue? What does it mean to coach that team? Um, and and what is the prospect moving forward for Puerto Rico hockey?

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

Oh um, you know what, I got out of hockey um for for a few from coaching for a few reasons. It was uh it was this entitlement that I felt that when I when I walked into a dressing room and I listened to the uh the kids speak and listened to the parents, um it really took away the passion that I had, you know, whether it was just running my hockey camps or goalie, because you had a few kids that were out there that really wanted it. And the rest of the kids were where I called them ice, ice money. They were there to pay for the ice, and and that was it. And then I really took a deep look and it's like I just wasn't having fun, whether it was at the junior level, whether it was at just the uh uh the wreck. Um, and I I I stepped away. And when I got the opportunity to go and coach a country, wow, I mean, it just it got my juices going again. It was just unbelievable because of the pride, because of the emotion, because of everybody wanted to succeed to set the organization up for success. It wasn't selfishness. Yeah, everybody wants to play on the uh the men's um national team. But I keep it real for all the players, and I think when they they I know when they look at each other, you know, they know that number one, when you sign up for Puerto Rican Ice Hockey or Priya, you're gonna be part of that organization for life. All right, but there's only so many people that can play on the men's national team, the women's national team, U-20, U18, and U 16. But we also make it so that the other players can still play within the organization, and it's the pride that goes into it. And I mean, to me, that's I I've only played for teams. I never ever got the opportunity to represent my country, um you know, countries, however you're gonna be able to do it. talking about yeah exactly um you know it's it it it it is just uh it is so refreshing to see all the passion that uh is going on uh behind the scenes um you know with uh our our first uh training camp for uh for Priya coming up in Chicago uh Chicago Blackhawks are opening up their uh practice facility for us it's uh it's gonna be an unbelievable experience for a lot you know a number of these players who have never ever had that opportunity before we've got some um amazing talent that all of a sudden is just popping out of the woodwork I got an email um and a text message from hey we just found out that uh um Tyler's grandfather um is uh uh was from the island does that make him eligible uh I would say yes he's playing in the US PHL it was his mother finding out for his son who's like 26 years old and I mean it's it's it's amazing the the um the opportunity going forward for you know whether it is your parents born on the island Puerto Rican your grandparents um or if you were born on the island the opportunity to uh play for uh for team Puerto Rico for the men's or women's team um is it's just uh it's an awesome opportunity and the talent level is just uh literally rising by the day yeah and I and I'll echo it Paul what you said too that you know being part of the double IHF now and and and working towards the world championships I love that you mentioned this everyone in the association from the players to the volunteers to the parents is pushing towards that goal yeah right and and you said it it's a nation it's a country that's it's a totally different thing than your local club hockey team just trying to push through the season you know and and and the pride that that we see daily is uh amazing for that um especially Hitley just let me let me interject just for a second is like when you when you you just said it it's it's the country okay like you're representing so it it's it's a lot bigger because you're playing for your grandparents you're playing for your your parents your kids you're you know you're you're looking at it in a totally different way whereas when you're playing junior it's a team but you're looking out for number one right okay because you're trying to get to that as a as a team as a whole you're trying to win but you're trying to get to what your goal is as well for Priya there's one goal right winning winning the world championship in our division that's it that's our goal as an organization for every single level so that's why it's a totally different concept that and whether you're you know Canadian and you're you're you're watching Sydney Crosby score that goal I mean against Miller it was it was unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:10

That's what now after three years being a double AHF and being eligible to play in the world championship Puerto Ricans have a lot for ice hockey to be proud of yeah and I'll just mention real quick that uh Crosby scoring on Miller was not a good memory for me but but but I do love that you love that and yeah look final thought on that too is just just to prove your point you know we were we were part of uh a team recently that competed in a gold medal game and on that day a hurricane was hitting the island and suddenly suddenly the game uh while important like we were playing for something just way bigger than a gold medal uh you can't draw on that typically in in uh in other organizations to that level right there's always the whys but wow that was a moment um Paul I want to ask about this too so we talk a lot about on our kids play hockey our kids play goal about the ability to transition your work ethic your drive your hatred to lose to business um and a lot of the most successful business people I know were former athletes and I want to talk about your business for a few minutes ultimate hockey fans because um a few things for our audience again it's a fully licensed NHL uh business he makes amazing wall art amazing ceiling fans and life fixtures that you have to check out if you're a fan of hockey but your approach to this business and if you've been listening to this episode you can tell Paul has a lot of hockey stories he loves this game um and he's able to express those stories and those memories in a way that allows you to experience them with him and I think you've incorporated that into your business right where you're not just selling NHL logos right you're selling memories you're selling uh parts of people's lives whether it's NHL or individual so talk to me for a little bit about about the business and what it is you're trying to create from an aura standpoint uh to make people not just invest in a product but but their life their memories and their and their joy well everything that I have in life has come through hockey one way or the other whether it was getting my first uh goaltending camp um through an old friend at uh who knew my father at a rink who needed a goalie and next thing you know 30 years later I'm doing goalie camps um then all of a sudden you know um getting into a situation in in my family life where um yeah you know you go through adversity and then all of a sudden um a guy like L Carey from PepsiCo steps up and I'm in corporate America.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:34

And then all of a sudden I have an idea to change a room into in our house that uh was my daughter's playroom to turn it into a game room to put up all our uh hockey memorabilia and needed a ceiling fan wanted it to be something cool uh that was uh hockey warned went online again 15 years ago there really wasn't anything out there and just happened to stumble after I purchased a ceiling fan at Lowe's going through the garage came up saw some old goalie sticks that were all rotten was like hey just cut the ends off of these and stick them up had an old goalie mask throw it over the light fixture and hey here we go I don't know if it's gonna work but it's gonna look cool anyways so um that's that's really how the story happened uh how I how I came into uh um ultimate hockey fans it was the four goalie blades um and a uh used uh goalie mask that I put on my light fixture um started to come in the uh quite the conversational piece at uh at parties and happened to have a good buddy that's a uh patent attorney was like you got something here and uh yeah we ended up uh um uh retired from uh from PepsiCo and then uh literally jumped right into the uh the hockey ceiling fan business uh the blades uh um started taking on a transformation of their own uh because as you know there's only two goalies on a team and all my other buddies are players goes hey my son doesn't want a goalie mask and a goalie stick in his on his ceiling you got anything else so then when the garage started tinkering around and came up with a uh a player blade and then from there that goalie mask still looked kind of creepy Paul I was like okay no problem I'll work on something and then came up with a uh a puck light fixture so um from the the puck light fixture we decided well not only could it be for a ceiling fan but we could use it as a wall sconce um you could use it as a kid's ceiling light and now as a uh as a pendant light so it's really taken the the transformation um of its own and the one thing that uh that I look back on and and I'm I'm very proud to this day is that every single piece that comes out of my shop I manufacture I have one other guy that that helps me out but to be able to do it and I and I learned this um unfortunately the hard way when I had my uh my real goalie mask business was that I trusted the manufacturer I was going out to do the the sales and everything everything was going to be on in house and unfortunately he went bankrupt and so did my so did that business I was never gonna let that ever happen to me it's it's a passion that from the ceiling fans all of a sudden someone was like hey my my grandson just finished his first season of baseball can you make me a um a piece of wall art for him and I was like wall art I was like well yeah I I guess I can try to figure out something and then just from that one piece of all art was like I can do logos NHL logos I came up with a custom uh uh for the 25 teams that won the uh the Stanley Cup an unbelievable piece of uh of wall art with uh with the logos that have the uh the names uh on the Stanley Cup I mean they are so clear that you could read them then as a goalie yep you can read all all the names on it the the clarity is uh unbelievable the goalie mass of course I had to come up with uh with those for each of the uh the NHL teams and then we just uh launched the uh the jerseys and from four or five feet away you see them hanging and illuminating on the wall and you think it's a real jersey and then you go up to them and you look at it and then it's metal.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:14

So yeah you know what uh I've been uh very blessed uh over the past uh four years to be uh licensed with uh the NHL and yeah the company is uh is growing well I I love it Paul and like I said I always like to bring up people on the show that have businesses because as a business owner myself we don't see the behind the scenes stuff you just kind of see the end result and as Paul said everything that leaves his factory goes through him he sees it before it comes to you and I think that that echoes the standards that you shared in net and if you're watching this episode not listening to it you'll see one of them behind me you'll see one behind Paula the Puerto Rico logo behind me yeah well well you know what Mike we're gonna we gotta hook you up we gotta hook you up and and Paul I know what to get Hank Lamin's now for a gift I'll make sure uh now I know what to get him yeah so yeah Paul Paul Mike said through this whole hour and a half just to get one of these no uh but you those of you at home can see him but check them out Mike we'll get him we'll get him a Hank Laman uh a uh there's a couple ways I could have gone down with this one we'll get him a St. Lawrence all American one hockey one that we got yeah yeah he'd love it I think what we should get is one of an angry Billy Smith like chasing him so we have that behind him all the time it just looks like he's always running uh for those of you listening obviously if you're interested in that check out ultimatehockeyfans.com uh Paul really does run a great business he's honorable you can trust this man and he does extremely high level good work uh I was blown away when ours came in person I said wow this is way higher level than I thought it was gonna be so I I would have been remiss if I didn't bring that up Paul because you have a great business there.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:47

Um thanks I appreciate it no problem I'm out of questions I'm out of questions Mike are you out of questions too do you have anything else you want to say before we move on to the end no I'm good I'm not gonna bring up my I don't want to bring up any controversy so no good it was unbelievable like I mean any any anytime we get to hear uh from goaltending and get all these different perspectives and and it's funny how a lot most of the goaltenders we talk to all come they all have the same ideas it's just all melded in and and the the great ones we talk to I mean I think the people that know the position and know how to teach and know what to look for maybe have different ways of getting our getting there but the but I think at the end of the day that the the the the core values of of what we need to do as coaches what we need to do as parents and how we need to treat our goaltenders you know really really tie in uh pretty consistently I agree.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:34

Paul I just want to turn over to you for any final thoughts before I close the episode no you know what for uh for all coaches out there for uh especially for the youth it's it it really is important to uh to integrate your goalies into practice um always have at least five minutes at the beginning of uh of practice to uh to work on their fundamentals as far as their uh their mobility get them in the net work on their uh um their mobility drills in the net as well and remember it's all about working hard and having fun playing hockey I love it well this has been a really fun episode and for those of you listening to our kids play goalie we got some more fun ones coming up Paul Cohen's a top guest right now we have uh famous e bug coming on the episode soon I'll just tease that to let you know that look out for that but uh as always with our kids play goalie we're looking to expand the knowledge of the position for everyone not just the person between the pipes but uh yeah this was a phenomenal one Paul thank you for being here thank you all for listening once again if you are uh looking for uh a late end of the season coaches gift head over to our kidsplayhockey.com we've got that stuff there including stuff from ultimate hockey fans if you're interested in learning more about that but uh without further ado for Paul Cohen Mike Vinelli I'm Leah Lyas you can listen to our kids play goalie and we'll see you in the next episode have a great week everybody we hope you enjoyed this edition of our kids play hockey make sure to like and subscribe right now if you found value wherever you're listening whether it's a podcast network a social media network or our website ourkidsplayhockey calm also make sure to check out our children's book when hockey stops at when hockey stops.com it's a book that helps children deal with adversity in the game and in life we're very proud of it thanks so much for listening to this edition of Our Kids Play Hockey and we'll see you on the next episode